


Revolt

by NekoAisu



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Prophecy, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Corsetry, Courtship, Eventual Smut, Intrigue, M/M, Magic, Multi, Nyx You Fantastic Bastard, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:35:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/NekoAisu
Summary: With Insomnia annexed and its King in too rough a state to travel, the honor of turning themself over to the growing Republic of Galahd as consolation falls to the king’s firstborn, Noctis Lucis Caelum. Nyx can’t find it in himself to complain.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... my Noctober + Kinktober prompts got out of control. As per usual. Please enjoy this wild ride of an AU. Rating and tags will be updated with each chapter posted.

With the singing of the sea ringing in his ears, Nyx Ulric knows they’ll win the war. The kingdom of Insomnia is formidable, but so are Galahd’s own warriors. It’s less a comparison of might and more a weighing of ingenuity. He can feel a victory beat pulsing in time with his heart. 

 

The time has come. 

 

He hasn’t slept well since the start of the hostilities, but he feels almost  _ too  _ invigorated now that he knows their victory is assured. The Tidemother stands with them. 

 

Hours later, on the battlefield, Nyx learns for the first time that the ocean can be wrong. The prince to the Insomnian crown forces the goddess to yield to him, eyes blazing in colors known to no man and weapons exploding into being around him. He takes their generals, their commanders, and the entirety of their mage unit down in two blows. He sets the earth aflame in his colors. 

 

It takes Nyx a myriad of tries before he even manages to come  _ close  _ to grazing the prince. He’s nearly akin to a god in his might, but he’s prone to human mistakes. One of them is obvious, the way he guards his back is a dead giveaway to prior injury. It takes a directed effort to distract him before Nyx is darting in, kukris long since unsheathed finally tasting blood. 

 

Insomnia’s prince seems to freeze in place before exploding into light. They don’t find him again.

 

Three weeks later and Nyx still can’t forget him. He was absolutely breathtaking, a weapon in human skin, and the buzz of magic surrounding him felt like a kick in the teeth when Nyx’s weapons finally connected with his body. The high of catching someone so formidable off guard is a heady rush from head to toe that doesn’t fade even after the adrenaline has worn off. 

 

He’d really done it. 

 

He’d stopped Insomnia’s next god-king.

 

(In all actuality, it had been him and twenty other people gunning for it, but he’d landed a blow first.)

 

When it comes through that the kingdom folds to them, it sends their embassy and general populace to chaos. They’d barely managed to avoid getting a good third of their entire godsdamned forces eradicated in one battle and  _ Insomnia  _ is surrendering? Unthinkable. 

 

The answer to all their questions comes in the form of a formal audience between the King of Insomnia, His Royal Majesty Regis Lucis Caelum CXVIII, and the current governing officials of the Republic of Galahd, Erebus Nikephoros and Armeena Benitoite. By the time news gets around, all Nyx knows is that apparently the prince in on bedrest because of a prior injury and that the King can’t afford to send him back out at them like a juggernaut made of magic. 

 

Nyx knows it stems from where he managed to hit the prince, but he didn’t think it would decide the whole  _ war.  _ The realization that he helped save his home from any further casualty comes slowly like the dawn, creeping up on him until he’s surrounded by euphoria. His family will be safe same as Crowe’s and Libertus’s. They won’t have to take up arms for a while after this, if it turns out right. 

 

Two days later lets him know that no, things are  _ not,  _ in fact, turning out right. 

 

He’s been promoted like hell because of his quick thinking and the holes in their ranks, but the new post of Brigadier General is an ill fit for sure. He’s not opposed to the higher pay grade. He’s opposed to the  _ decorum.  _ For a collection of the country’s best minds, they sure value castes a bit too much to be healthy. 

 

With the promotion comes a new assignment: escort the Lucian heir to Galahd, as per agreed upon in the treaty papers. They “can’t risk leaving it to anyone else. He’s volatile like all other Lucians” to the point that it takes a whole entire war meeting to figure out arrangements. They can’t cancel out his magic the way Niflheim can, but they know he’s weak. It’s just a matter of ensuring he  _ stays  _ that way. Nyx is, of course, their first choice for a throwaway pawn. He just takes one look at the pay he’s promised and assents. He leaves for Insomnia at first light. 

  
  
  


Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV is having a bad day. Scratch that, he’s having a  _ terrible  _ day. He sleeps like the dead, usually, but he’s been tossing and turning all night for a week now. He knows it’s anxiety eating away at him, but he can’t  _ help  _ it. 

 

He’s being traded away to the enemy to protect his people from massacre.

 

Thinking of Galahd’s demands from a logical standpoint, their want for him to stay within their borders is perfectly sound. It seals off the possibility of him inheriting the throne while also allowing for their full control of his political power (or lack thereof). It’s like house arrest, but ten times more dangerous and far more discomfiting. 

 

If he’s not worrying about his new “home,” Noctis is stewing with anger. His father is weak from using the Ring of the Lucii for so many years to protect the people. They don’t have near enough military power to put Galahd on its back the way they had Niflheim, not even with a god-king in the making, and the blow of knocking both king and crown prince from operability forced Lucis to surrender. He hopes they’ll at least let his father live peacefully under their command. 

 

His bags are packed and stacked in a corner by his closet. It’s nowhere near empty, but it  _ feels  _ that way. His whole room is like a vacuum determined to suck all life from him same as the Crystal. After taking comfort in the dark austerity of the Citadel’s black marble and gilding, it’s terrifying to feel it suffocating him the way it does outsiders. 

 

He sits up and tosses his sheets off with a huff. There’s no way he’ll be able to catch a second’s more sleep with his mind in such a state. The floor of his room is  _ freezing,  _ prompting him to hurry towards the bathroom for a shower. He bypasses the mirror in an effort to ignore how terrible his eyebags have gotten along with his general health. It works well enough that once the shower is on and steam fogs the glass, he forgets he has to pretend at being human. 

 

He tugs off his tee and kicks out of his pajama pants. They’re both old and worn to a near threadbare state, but they’re comforting for it. The black of the shirt has lightened and there’s a hole on the left side of the collar to match the one on the right sleeve. The pants are part of a matching set he and his father both have, too short to really fit him quite right in the length department and patterned with carbuncles. He knows it’s the last time he’ll be able to wear them. 

 

Stepping into the shower stall feels more like stepping into a prison cell. The tile is warm against his feet, the water nearly scalding. Noctis wishes it was somehow fire. He wants to purge himself of this nightmare. 

 

Soaping up on muscle memory alone, he tries to keep his mind from wandering. It doesn’t work in the least. 

 

There are so many problems clamoring for his attention and making demands that he can’t fulfill. What sits heaviest on his shoulders is that his country needs a  _ king.  _ Regis is one hell of a man, but he’s not  _ immortal.  _ The thought of his father passing away makes Noctis’s stomach roil badly enough he decides to forgo breakfast. It is a normal reality, though, and he knows it. 

 

He watches water sluice from his hair downward to the drain in a daze. He doesn’t stop until there’s a knock at his bedroom door. 

 

Turning the knob to stop the flow makes him look at his hands. They’re calloused from training with Gladio and working on paper after paper with Ignis, but they’re not  _ strong.  _ He watches them tremble from somewhere far away. 

 

There’s the knock again and then his door is opening. It’s Ignis, then. Nobody else enters his Citadel room without express permission save Ignis, Gladiolus, and his own father. Gladio never knocks twice. Noctis is lucky if he gets even one rap at the wood before it’s swinging open when his Shield is involved. 

 

He steps out of the shower and onto the mat, dripping wet and uncomfortable. His back aches something fierce the way it always does, but there’s a newer scar among the mess of older ones. The spot itches like a rash, but he knows it’s just the want to get  _ rid  _ of it. He’d been careless enough to get crippled all over again. It’s only by the Crystal’s good graces that he’d even managed to warp out of the way safely. There’s no want for a repeat performance. 

 

There’s a towel set by the open bathroom door. Noctis pulls it around his shoulders and cuts to his closet, trying his best to avoid what Ignis’s arrival means. He’s deliberating between black brocade and a cotton number when his advisor clears his throat. 

 

“Noctis, I know this change has hit you hardest,” he begins in a soft voice, “but we do not have time to dally.” Ignis is tense in the way only he can manage, prim and proper without a hair out of place while he falls apart. “If you’ll permit me, I have a suggestion for this afternoon’s travel-wear.”

 

It’s like a breath of fresh air for Noctis to not have to use his brain for a moment. “Sure, Specs. What’cha got?” He tries to shove nonchalance into the words and relax his shoulders, but he’s a wreck as it is. He feels terribly vulnerable. 

 

“How is your back feeling this morning?” Ignis strides over to the closet and pulls out a small collection of items, laying everything over his arm before setting them down on Noctis’s bed. His tone is sharp when he states, “I will not help you injure yourself out of stubbornness. We will be travelling for over a day, so speak now, or go without.”

 

Noctis zones in and out of space, half listening and half deaf to Ignis’s words. He feels absentmindedly at his back, one hand holding the towel in place. He can feel the scar tissue against his fingertips, but he can’t feel the touch itself. “Just the usual twinges.”

 

Ignis smoothes his hands over a shirt before answering, “Well then, the cream one should do the trick for today. Please, stop standing around in a towel and put some underwear on, Highness.” He turns to give his prince privacy, waiting until Noctis taps him on the shoulder before laying eyes on him again. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, but the sight never fails to push him to reverence. 

 

Noctis is a collection of scars. There’s one on his jaw from when he tripped and smacked it on the garden’s table at age ten, three parallel on his upper arm from when he saved a feral cat that same year, multiples from training scattered nearly everywhere on his body. Then, there are the ones from battle. Those are deeper, angrier things. They sit on his skin like reminders of the lives he’s been forced to take. 

 

Ignis wants to worship each and every one of them. 

 

His hair is still dripping down onto his shoulders. Ignis grabs the towel and ruffles it dry carefully, enjoying Noctis’s natural hairstyle more than he does the straightened, gelled result of his prince’s hard work. Yes, the spiking is charming, but he likes the slight waves and softer angles. It makes him look more regal, in a way. It’s almost a reminder of King Regis when he was Noctis’s age. 

 

Ignis busies himself with hanging up the towel to dry and checking through Noctis’s bags. Since the initial injury, Noctis had experimented with innumerable options for back support. He’d gone through braces of all different sorts, new medical inventions lauded for helping reduce strain and minimize pain in damaged areas, and at least fifty different types of kinesthetic tape. What he settled on were corsets. 

 

The Line of Lucis is one of eccentricity. The first king, Somnus Lucis Caelum, had begun the tradition of gifting  _ literal weapons  _ to the next in line for the throne. Sounded like a great idea for a bit, the Just did a real good job with the given power, but then King Mors came around and everything fell into a moral grey area. Weapon-gifting aside, the previous kings all had their own ornate ways of styling themselves. It leaves Noctis, heir to the throne, with more freedom to dress than is probably safe to give a Very Important Public Figure. Nobody comments when he starts showing up at meetings with his back slightly too straight, shirt sliding in a way that suggest slick fabric underneath. His experimentation is nothing new. 

 

Within a year, he’s amassed a small collection. There’s satin and brocade, raw silk and velvet, mesh and cotton, so many different fabrics and constructions Noctis is pretty sure he’ll never manage to try them all even in an entire lifetime. He likes the ones he’s commissioned from specialty shops the best. They fit perfectly every time, nearly like a familiar embrace once on and laced up. It’s a reminder to sit up and move with poise, to walk tall with the comfort of support at his back. He’s eternally thankful for Ignis’s understanding of his endeavors. The problem now is managing to wear them while abroad. 

 

Galahdian clothing is flexible and near unisex in nature. The lack of structured fabrics a longstanding traditional style built heavily upon by their culture’s penchant for being near blindingly colorful. Lucian fashion is structured to fault, made for cutting an imposing figure rather than being comfortably affluent. He’s not sure how well things will go if he’s made to leave his things at the halfway point same as a full political marriage. Hell, for all Noctis knows, this may as well be one in the making. It’s not like he has any sort of governing figure with which to beat suitors off with (and he doubts dealing with unwanted advances with summoned weaponry would be viewed kindly in a permanent state of captivity). 

 

Satisfied with what he finds, Ignis zips up the last of the luggage and sighs. He tries to project confidence, if not for his prince’s sake, then for his own. “My apologies.” He’s not sure what he’s trying to be sorry for, specifically speaking, but he knows he’d do absolutely anything to see that Noctis’s burdens are done away with. 

 

Noctis huffs half a laugh and offers, “Wanna stay for a bit?”

 

Ignis attempts to refuse, “I have─”

 

“Nothing to do,” Noctis interjects, “and I  _ know  _ you’re already packed.” He lifts the corset from the bed and fits it into place, making sure each busk is closed properly before reaching back to adjust the lacing. Ignis finds himself smiling when Noctis finishes up and asks, “Can you tie it off for me?”

 

“Of course, Highness,” he replies easily. It’s not a common part of their routine, anymore. Ignis knows helping Noctis put on and properly lace up his corsets when he was still getting used to them was already intruding upon lines he was most likely never even supposed to toe. 

 

If Ignis were a stronger man, he’d simply do his job as it is and never wonder about impossible dreams. 

 

But here he is, one hand carefully evening out the lacing in a couple places while the other slides worshipfully along where the ends sit to check and make sure it’s sitting correctly. He finishes fastening the ends of the laces in a secure bow and steps back, brain set on burning the vision of Noctis in his underclothes in the space behind his eyelids. Ignis is fairly sure being so unknowingly handsome should be a crime. 

 

Noctis smiles at him, but it’s a wisp of a gesture. He pulls his shirt on before his pants, leaving out his knee brace, and does up the neck tie in a loose not-quite-bow. Ignis catches his eye and raises a brow. It’s left loose after that, both of them laughing hysterically. 

 

“This is gonna suck  _ ass,”  _ Noctis says at last, breaking their uneasy silence as he wrestles with the buckle on a particularly new belt that refuses to go through the notch.

 

Ignis snorts, a decidedly unprofessional gesture, and replies, “I’d normally scold you for that, but I do agree with your assessment.” He moves Noctis’s hands out of the way and finishes buckling the contraption. “That was not punched very well, was it?”

 

Noctis shrugs and grabs his boots, pulling them on over his pants, and takes a look in the mirror. “I hate wearing white.”

 

“I do understand, but it’s part of tradition,” Ignis reminds. The white of his shirt, billowy fabric tucked into the top of his pants at the waist, is an unwelcome, but no less striking change from the norm. “Are we ready to depart? The delegation should be here within the hour.”

 

“Yeah,” Noctis answers, signing his freedom away in a single sentence, “I think we are.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as my lovely friend Haven said, "nyx ulric, hide your boner"

Nyx Ulric considers himself to be a man of good moral character. He pays his taxes and protects his country, even if protecting it means murder, and does his part in caring for his family. However, faced with the imperious glare of Insomnia’s reigning god-king, he’s decently sure he may want to reevaluate that assessment. 

 

Regis Lucis Caelum is the last of a long line of kings, if the CXVIII customarily put after his name is anything to go by. Nyx thinks it’s a shame that his son will never get to inherit, if his battle prowess is indicative of his overall skill in tending to a country. Regis seems to think so, too. His expression never betrays his assumed want to find Nyx in a ditch somewhere instead of taking his only child away to enemy territory for the rest of his life. 

 

Regis’s professionalism does nothing to assuage either of their fears.

 

When the prince arrives, Nyx is decently sure they’re being duped. There’s nothing to his uneven gait that speaks of years at war─not a wrinkle to be found in his dress uniform from tip to toe, eyes fixed firmly on the middle distance like he’s ready to break at the sight of his condemnation─and then he stands next to the king of Insomnia and  _ oh.  _

 

Nyx is decently sure no prayer will save him now, but  _ Astrals  _ he’s positive that the prince is going to murder him before the king even manages to get close. There’s fire in his eyes, a promise of blood and the bite of steel tempered by firsthand experience, and it’s the hottest thing Nyx has ever laid witness to in all his years. He can see the hellion from the battlefield in those eyes all to easily. 

 

The thought comes with the memory of Crowe laughing at him, reminding him not to crush too hard on Insomnian black-bloods the morning of his departure.  _ Well,  _ he thinks,  _ this can’t get much worse.  _ He’s confident that Insomnia’s Noctis is the only dangerously attractive member of the Insomnian nobility, accounting for the fact that all the councilmembers currently staring him down would be hard pressed to look like anything other than piles of depression and opulence. 

 

Then, one rather supercilious Royal Insomnian Advisor proves him wrong with a glare the moment they meet eyes. 

 

Nyx feels his stomach do some acrobatics he’d wish it would just  _ stop  _ and tries to appear as pleasantly neutral as possible which he knows, by Insomnian standards, is both too casual and colorful for their tastes. It’s the best he can do with a good ninety percent of his brain working overtime to put a name to that particular shade of green─seafoam? Mint? Jade?─in lieu of having to keep his vitals stable. Heart palpitations are an all too common occurrence for Nyx and his easily charmed disposition. 

 

His assumption that he’d have to deal with maybe one token attractive noble is dashed further when the prince’s Shield lumbers in after him, standing resolutely at his charge’s back in a full dress uniform. 

 

Everyone wears black, save for their bargaining chip, and even then it’s just a shirt. Nyx misses the colors of home, of painted masks and well meaning banter over the length of a communal dinner table. He can’t imagine how it must feel for Noctis to not have a chance of returning to his home, no matter how stuffy it happens to be, under such circumstances. Although, it may be because there’s a lot of blood making an effort to pool where  _ it should not be right now please and thank you.  _

 

If there’s anything Nyx knows above all else, it’s that his job comes before his heart─and  _ far  _ before his dick. That means eyes above the chest, hands far from tangling in sinfully soft black hair, and a strained hopefully-professional smile that he hopes conveys his dislike for this job as much as their enemy. Then, the King of Insomnia addresses him and Nyx feels like he’s made a blunder just by existing. 

 

“Brigadier General Ulric, I trust Galahd will honor the terms of our surrender? It’s not the first time an attempt at my son’s life has been made under the guise of an armistice,” Regis says and Nyx knows where Noctis got that resolve from. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Libertus likes to tease after Nyx and Selena pull their usual stunts, but there’s a creeping suspicion that Noctis may really just be Regis 2.0. No man that young should have the resignation of an old king carved into his bones. 

 

“You have my word and that of our Republic’s as well, your Majesty. No harm will come to him,” Nyx replies, hand on his heart and eyes locked on the king’s. “Thank you for your trust and cooperation.”

 

Noctis coughs and the tension is shattered like a bullet through glass, the prince glaring something fierce before striding down from his place by the throne. There’s a slight tilt to his gait, but it’s nigh unnoticeable with how Noctis holds himself─back straight, head tilted ever so slightly upward, shoulders squared─as he glides down the steps. 

 

He’s standing just close enough for Nyx to notice the barely-there outline of something through his shirt, the lapel pins bearing the crest of House Caelum not nearly so important as the mystery layer sitting tight to his skin underneath the gauzy white, and Nyx resists an urge to take the two steps that would bring them chest to chest. He’s so focused on puzzling out what the mystery clothing is that Noctis’s voice startles him. 

 

“I invoke my right to bring a companion,” he states, tone brooking no argument. “If you have any complaints, take it up with page fifty three, paragraph four, line seven wherein which it was agreed upon that _ “the party giving up autonomy, given their consent to the terms, will be allowed the privilege of one travelling companion to assist them in their transition to that of a part of the Republic of Galahd.”  _ I take it there will be no further changes to the terms, correct?” 

 

The younger Amicitia smiles near imperceptibly when Nyx tenses, having only been equipped to bring back one rather dangerous god-king-in-training and not said man  _ and  _ his advisor. “Of course, your Highness,” he answers easily, polite smile long since begun to fray. “I don’t mean to be rude, but will he be requiring anything past that of a normal passenger’s treatment?”

 

Noctis tilts his head back further, looking down his nose like he’s seated on a throne rather than coming up multiple inches short of Nyx’s full height, lips curling like speaking to Nyx at all is like making conversation with an imbecile, and comments, “I do hope that the Republic isn’t so backwards as to consider me an invalid in need of special treatment. I’d hate to ruin their pity party.” The three guards Nyx had travelled with, some random operatives deemed strong enough to not be easy prey to the Insomnian prince, take sharp breaths through their teeth. “Oh,” Noctis says with a simper too volatile for politics, “I see I hit the mark. Best send word that I’m no shrinking violet.”

 

If Nyx had thought he was in trouble before, Noctis’s charismatic way of tearing him a new one feels nearly like someone decided to arbitrarily stoke the flame burning in his gut just to see how long he can last before immolating and making some rather irreparable mistakes. He just drops half the smile, leaving it lopsided in the way Crowe knows means he’s doing his best to be charming, and asks, “Is that all, your Highness?”

 

The prince nods and his advisor starts down the steps, impossibly measured in his treacherously well tailored travel-wear. By the time he’s standing at his charge’s back, Nyx has said a prayer to each of the ancients and Eos herself for deliverance from the temptations of Insomnian couture’s penchant for making already hot men impossibly more enthralling. 

 

“I thank you for your forthcomingness, Brigadier General Ulric,” green-eyes says, the bow of his lips distracting when he speaks, and he gives a smile that carries over to his eyes a little too much to be anything but genuine. “We are ready to depart once negotiations are finished.”

 

Nyx is singing praises to Ifrit for his willingness to make a man such an infuriating classical beauty when he says, “Alright, then. We look forward to your company, Sir…?”

 

“Scientia. Ignis, if you’re the sort to prefer informality. I doubt you’ll forget it.”

 

When the advisor and prince depart, Nyx is left with three thoughts. 

 

One: the deposed Crown Prince of Insomnia could very possibly be wearing lingerie. 

 

Two: Ignis “sex on legs” Scientia is  _ definitely  _ unforgettable. 

 

And three: He’s royally fucked. Astronomically fucked. Cosmically fucked. Just very much fucked in as many ways possible because someone thought he’d be a good choice for an escort on a three day trip from Insomnia to Galahd in place of someone more immune to stunning individuals that could easily murder him and hide the body efficiently.

 

All things considered, he’s still doing better than usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu on any of my social media about this fic, or just to chat! i'd love to hear from you!! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos, concrit, and comments are all encouraged and very welcome <3
> 
> Hmu on:  
> tunglr - kiriami-sama  
> twitter - FlamingAceKiri  
> discord - NekoAisu#7099


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